Virgin Classics has embarked
on an extensive reissue programme and this is one of the fruits
of that back catalogue work. Norrington’s Water Music was recorded
back in 1996 and conflated the three suites into two, in F major
and D major. The results are consistently bracing, powerfully
propounded, skilfully projected and not always free from disputatious
point-making.
Fortunately Norrington was accorded
a first class, if rather close-up recording which emphasises
attacks. The horns are full of vigour in the Allegro of the
F major Suite, the strings’s rhythms well sprung, and the oboes
phrasing with real acumen in the Andante section. The Air has
a light, bright insouciance that’s really effective; articulation
is crisp and lines are shaped with care. The evenness of the
horns’ playing is especially effective. The flute playing is
at its most impressive in the Menuet of the D major Suite and
there is a splendid delineation of upper and lower voice parts
in the Country Dance of the same suite. That said there are
some stylistic features that might grate and one of the most
pervasive and problematic is the nature of the articulation,
which has a détaché quality that sounds overdone too often.
The Rigaudon also sports a strange legato moment that perplexes.
The Fireworks Music is suitably
grand but Norrington is occasionally mannered in the Ouverture.
To make amends the trumpets and percussion are on tight, excellent
form in La Réjouissance. It’s an excellent performance as far
as it goes though Norrington’s approach to orchestration and
repeats is quixotic, or personal – however you wish to characterise
it; I’m thinking in particular of the Minuet repeats.
It’s precisely these questions
that lend Norrington’s performance their character and more
combustible qualities. This is a well-established pairing, the
baroque equivalent and the Bruch and Mendelssohn Violin concerto
pairing, so you are not short of recommendable recordings on
original instruments. The variance of the repeats still strikes
me as a small weakness but if you can cope with this and rather
shifting nature of the instrumentation then you’ll find much
to enjoy.
Jonathan Woolf
see
also Review
by Michael Greenhalgh
London Classical
Players/Roger Norrington 
